Elayne became close friends with Louise Fraher whom she met in Girl Scouts. While Elayne attended Woburn Senior High School, Louise was a student at St. Charles. Even though their religious backgrounds were different (Elayne was brought up in the North Woburn Congregational Church), they stayed close friends through the years. Louise ended up attending the Massachusetts College of Art and Design while Elayne entered Bridgewater State College. They were roommates in Orleans twice during the summers of 1964 and 1965 and Louise was Maid of Honor at Elayne's wedding in 1968.
Louise first taught Elayne how to do portraits and they each did a portrait of the other, but Elayne believes Louise did a lot of the portrait on the Louise Fraher page. Elayne then tackled a gold statue of a bird that her mother kept in the living room at Third Road using a variety of colors. Although Elayne liked pastels, her life got busy and she didn't do any more pastel artwork. Hopefully, she will get into it more in the future.